Little Red
by ErrorsErrors
Summary: A twist on the classic little red riding hood story– Stiles is the grandson of the original 'Little Red'.
1. Names

You decided one day never to respond to your name. "Genim!" your mother would yell in panic. "Come down!" It was out of a four-year old sense of rebellion that you climbed higher, the stone wall protecting their village becoming a playground. That had been the first time you'd climbed it and was not the last, each time feeling a rush of something, something that filled up the hole within you. Most days would find you up there, smashed berries smudging fingers as you drew images, childish scribbles telling only a story you could read. Your pockets were forever be stained a myriad of colors, the berries your collected and carried with you filling them to the brim.

The first time you'd grabbed berries that were for eating you'd been scolded. Your mother had gone into a rage, waving hands and spit flying. Her words had gone ignored, your eyes trained on the wooden spoon she'd flicked about in your direction. You now keep it slipped up a sleeve, the smooth wood reminding you of times that you can't quite remember beyond a sense of bittersweet nostalgia.

In time the name Stiles came to be ignored as well, as did Aeton, Kaden, Iason and the brief time that you called himself Caecilia. You shed and adopted names like the sun rose, each coming close, but never enough, never was it you. In time your mother gave up on you, simply shouting out "You!" or "Child!"

The grump of a man Alastor next door only calls you Imp.

You are different from the other children, skin pale and smooth where the other boys tanned and scarred. Freckles and a scattering of moles consume your face, eyes like honey shine with more mischief than any one person should possess. You grew like a weed, limbs shifting from awkward and gangling to smooth and tricking. When your mother was not cross she fondly refer to you as her 'Cattail', the plants that sprung in the backyard mocking your skinniness and mess of brown hair.

The villagers don't like you much, how you like to swipe blood from the butchers and run through the square covered in it, screaming that the wolves had come. Your fingers are permanently a shade of purple from getting them whacked with a rod, Father long since dead but Alastor more than happy to pick up the slack. You don't care much for Alastor.

You are a live wire, a spark of energy that never stops moving. Always a foot tapping or fingers snapping, eyes flitting to chase a bird or the smoke from a pipe. The boys and girls were fascinated by you until they gathered the courage to speak to you. Rude words and a sharp tongue pushed away any attempt at friendship; you knew they were in love with the image of you, not yourself. They were in love with the boy who would disobey teachers for what they thought was no reason. They could not see the world like you do, with the colors so vibrant and the world reverberating with life, with an energy that filled you up as well.

The only time you ever calm, ever sit still is when you rest atop the tall stone walls, limbs stretching out in feline-like grace. You stare out into the woods, watching the trees ripple with life and whisper to one another. At times you scale down the wall's other side, though never reached the bottom out of fear. You knew that enemies lurked within those woods, and that you would never reach your destination if you dare enter.

Oh how you missed your grandmother.

Your grandmother had been the first 'Little Red'. She was the first one to see how clever the wolves had gotten, the first to kill one as a child. She had been the one to build up the walls, to move into the forest to hunt them. As time grew older the task was passed onto your aunt, then upon her death in childbirth, you. You were the first boy to inherit the cloak, and the rest of the neighborhood disagreed. "Him? Of all people? He will never help us!" they had yelled, poking and jabbing with their needle fingers, eyes narrowed to slits. "Just give it up; give the cloak to someone who deserves it!"

It was that same rebellion, that same one that had you climbing the high walls as a child that made you throw on the cloak. Shadows climbed out of the hood to cling to your face as you glared at the villagers, mimicking their narrowed eyes and needle hands. You are only fourteen, barely a man, though older than your grandmother had been when she had first ventured into the forest. It was from that glare that the other villagers fell silent, no one questioning you. They recognized something had settled within you, a wild part of the wolves you now hunt settling within you.

They now call you Little Red.

And for once, you respond.

* * *

A/N: Had to do an assignment for my creative writing class, and the ending result ended up so I really only had to tweak some of the names for it to be a teen wolf fic. May end up publishing the second half depending on feedback, but it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.


	2. Run

You receive word in the summer of your first year as Little Red that your grandmother has fallen ill. The news came in the form of a hunter passing through, this Argent fellow an old trade buddy with her. You weren't there when the news was delivered, you don't know how ill she's gotten, but you see the hurried glances and the anxious whispers. Your grandmother was the protector of this village, even since the passing of the cloak. She hunted the wolves that prowled your walls at night, thinning them down as much as possible, tossing their pelts to others in trade. Without her your village will be completely overrun. After all, it was common knowledge that the wolves here knew how to climb the walls. All it took was one brave enough.

You don't realize what you're doing until your hands are full, satchel in one and vial in the other, your mother tugging anxiously on the clasp of your cloak. The worried creases by her eyes and the set of her mouth tell you she disagrees. "Move swiftly," is all she says, and her eyes are the color of your cloak with her tears. There is no peck on the cheek for luck, only a crown of monkshood set upon your temples.

So you do. Your feet pound on the dirt path as you run, even under the forest canopy the ground hardened by the hot sun. The satchel thumps against your back as you go, red cloak flying behind you like a shadow. Your hand keeps flitting back to the lump in your pocket, thumb rubbing over the cork stopper.

You're a quarter of the way there when you see him. The man dressed in fine clothes smudged with dirt, an oily smirk in place. What you hope are berry stains speckle his fingertip, a permanent tinting. "Now, what's a boy like you doing all the way out here? It's not safe. Come, let me guide you back home." You say nothing, moving past. You know he cannot touch you, you see the way he shys away from the flowers.

Two more times you are stopped. Once is by a young girl, sniffling and crying she'd lost her way, oh won't you help her. But you see the fangs and the red stained teeth and move past her. The next is a pregnant woman, stomach swollen with child. "Please will you fetch me some water? I'm horribly thirsty, and there's a stream just there!" she begged, gesturing into the woods. You keep moving, seeing the eyes glowing brightly in the underbrush where she pointed.

When you arrive at your grandmother's you can see things are amiss. The front door is broken down, claw marks decorating the front. From inside you can hear scuffling, like a small child bumping into things as it learns to walk. You step inside and are immediately tackled to the ground, a writhing mass of fur and flesh atop you. Kicking it off, you roll away, fangs snapping at where your ankle just was. The wolf's eyes are blind with age and blend into it's white pelt eerily, but it's able to smell and hear you the same. Still a threat.

Your hands scrabble for the vial at your side, feet pushing back at the floor to keep you moving; up, backwards, _away. _The cork is stubborn, and you take your eyes off of the wolf to glare down at it as you try to get it out.

It was when the wolf lunges that you get the cork off, the contents sloshing about into the air as it sinks it's teeth into your arm. It's fire, spreading from your bicep to shock you into blindly snatching the garland from where it lay trampled on the ground. You smack the flowers into the wolf's eyes, and when it starts to pull back in pain you cram the rest down it's throat, ignoring how your hand is bitten down to the bone in the process.

It seizes, falling back and your arm falls free, a mangled and bloody mess hanging limply at your side. You gasp, eyes wide, unable to process. Unable to take in the smell of burning flesh, of the wolf stilling before melting back to your grandmother's prone, dead form. Unable to process as your veins were seized by the bite, as it moved it's way through you to grip tight on your heart. You are unable to process as you scream, the sound more a pleading howl than anything human in creation.

You don't know how long you lay there, staring at the red cloak around you, spilling across the wood like blood. You hate it now, hate how it does it's job, paralyzing you there, keeping you trapped in human skin while your mind and the bite fight for dominance. It burns, it hurts, like your bones are breaking but you can't black out from the pain, can't do anything to stop it. Part of you knows it's a good thing, the internal struggle keeping you here and holding back the wolf until someone can come and end you. But most of you screams. Most of you_ doesn't want to die_.

It's irritatingly impossible to tune out that part of yourself.

It seems like it's only between a blink that there are suddenly paws in your vision. Maybe you blacked out. You don't really remember. There's a nose nudging at your chest, and another is lapping at the bite marks on your arm. You can't hear the whine you make but you feel it, and you feel the way that the wolves around you whine back in response. You're lifted, much like a pup, by the nape of your neck, only it is the cloak's hood that is caught between jaws and you are indifferent to the bite of the clasp digging into your throat, pain drowned out by the fire from your arm. The cloak does not want to let you go, no matter how the wolves may paw at it.

You are resolutely dropped against one of the larger ones, black fur hiding the world from you as noses prod at you, snuffling. You belatedly realize that you're screaming, a drawn out sound that is leaving your throat ragged and torn, tears streaming down your face.

Time moves oddly, and you aren't sure how long you lay there, slumped against the wolf, hands clutching painfully into the fur. There are snouts coddling you, running reassuringly over your neck, and ones has curled protectively around your feet. When you push back, unsteady on your bare feet you can feel their eyes on you, waiting to catch you if you fall. You don't. Your mind is split now, half of it instructing the newer, young-but-old wolf inside of you how to move on two legs. It wants to run and howl and tear; it cannot in this body, and you are unwilling to part with the red cloak. It is what keeps you here and separate from the wolf.

You move slowly past your grandmother. Try not to think how her blood is soaked into your cloak. The wolves are walking alongside you now, sides hitting you in encouraging nudges. Some of the younger pups bound forward, trotting outside into the sunlight. You are guided out after them, some of the older wolves looking at you as if you were a child as well. In some ways you are, both human and wolf halves.

You run. If you stay you'll be endangering the wolves and yourself; the hunters will come as soon as it is apparent that you aren't coming back. You've been here too long as it is. So you run. Run, away from the spilled vial and away from the crushed monkshood– the crushed wolfsbane.

You're one of the moon-children now.

You are no longer the Little Red.

You are the boy who runs with wolves.

And somehow you can't help but grin.


End file.
